


If You're Losing Yourself

by rainy_fangirl



Series: songfics [8]
Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Apocalypse, Character Death, Dark! Alina, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, I haven't read these books in 2 years, Murder, My First Work in This Fandom, Songfic, Violence, alternate ruin and rising ending, comfort and debatable hurt, is it fix-it if I kill everyone?, lol guess who, probably not at all canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-07 15:13:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14083707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainy_fangirl/pseuds/rainy_fangirl
Summary: Be a dose of protection through the blood and the tears..."She doesn’t want this to be their ending, she wants this to be their beginning.





	If You're Losing Yourself

_ {I don't wanna be touched by the fear in your eyes _

_ I don't wanna be left for my demons to find} _

 

Alina wishes she could stop it, they’re about to die, for Saint’s sake. But, however much she tries, Alina’s heart rate keeps flickering upwards when she sees him look for her. Aleksander was trying his best, his once glorious, now lackluster army is waiting for them, guns at their waists, though she knows they don’t need them. Knowing the Darkling, he’ll have some trick up his sleeve, to finally kill her. Somehow, Alina isn’t sad. She isn’t afraid. Sickeningly enough, she looks forward to it. While the war has taken its toll on her, she enjoys it. It’s an excuse to avoid Mal. Going home with him, cooking him dinner and giving him children….it’s what Mal wants. Alina had chosen the military for a reason, she had never intended to be one of those women who stayed at home, yet here she was, killing her way across Ravka so she could. Aleksander knew too, as his all too warm eyes meet hers across the battlefield, Alina holding back tears. As much as she tried, she didn’t want this to be their ending, the valiant hero off to slay her villain. Alina tries to forget it, the few and far between afternoons in his office with her legs safely crossed were made her feel more than a million years in Mal’s bedroom, protected and safe, ever could. It’s not even her firebird that’s the problem, it’s the way she’s insatiably drawn to The Darkling like a moth to a flame, needing him was second nature. Like called to like, in the end, only Aleks could know her in full. She doesn’t want this to be their ending, she wants this to be their beginning.  

 

_ {When the leaves are gone and the beating's sung _

_ Brings the world bang drums} _

 

They don’t break contact, even as Alina looks elsewhere. She and Zoya work quickly and efficiently, in ways they hadn’t been able to before. Nikolai did the best he could, though Alina still can’t look at him completely. It’s not his fault, she’s had to constantly remind herself of that. This is unmistakably Darkling work, no matter how much Alina would like to say otherwise. She stands tall as the skiff dips and pitches, an unfortunately comforting feeling that reminds Alina of her military days. Aleksander taunts her resentment about what they both know she’ll have to do. (“You won’t be able to do this, will you, little Sankta?” etc.). While she hears this, Alina also notices the fear in his eyes, as well as how much he tries to hide it. He probably sees it in hers, too. Alina fights gently, refracting baby beams of light that barely make a dent in his shadows. She’s dancing around the issue, praying she won’t leave here with his blood on her hands, or at all, for that matter. Mal waits for her as the fold falls apart, darkness crumbling as the world falls down around them. The knife slips between his ribs easier than she thought it would, and Alina nearly gasps from the lack of impact. As she wipes his blood off her hands, she can’t feel anything but relief, now that the man she should’ve been in love with is gone, all Alina feels is liberated. As the newfound power courses through her, she gently slips Mal’s limp wrist off hers. Alina tilts her chin upward, dark eyes meeting Aleksanders, as if saying “shall we?”. 

 

_ {Tell me you, will hold me in the golden afterlife _

_ Yeah, you _

_ You don't have to die alone tonight} _

 

They’re doing this, they’re doing it together, she’s already decided this, Malyen’s knife is warm in Alina’s hand, still dripping with her friend’s blood. She tries to ignore the heartbroken looks her grisha, her friends give her as she makes her way to Aleksander like a bride down the aisle. To his credit, her Darkling doesn’t look away, remaining constant as the Fold bent in around them, buckling like the Little Palace’s poorly reconstructed roof in a thunderstorm. Alina is hesitant before him, still the blushing teenager she was when they met. She’s still his as much as she likes to deny it, the memories that make her grisha and their touches, real or imaginary, that are so hopelessly intertwined. It’s the way his amplifiers act, how they rest on her collarbone like she was born to wear them. Alina wishes she could unlove him, desperately wishes she could go back to when his hands grazed her hips and the future was theirs, but they’ve gone too far, the scar tissue has built up, and they are impossible to heal.

 

_ {I will find you in a burning sky _

_ Where the ashes rain in your mind _

_ Sacrifice _

_ If we're closer to the other side _

_ And the heavens all start to cry _

_ Sacrifice} _

 

She will miss this, she will miss him. Alina drinks it in like the endless cups of wine she downed in order to gather the courage to slink into Aleksander’s bedroom the night before they fell apart. Reluctantly, he offers her a hand, and for a moment, Alina wonders if she’ll miss the wanting, the way his touch makes her toes curl and the mere thought of her Darkling sends shivers down her spine. Gently, she takes it, their fingers barely brushing. Alina doesn’t dare exhale, they’re this close, all she can do is hold on as the world crumbles around them. When it gets too much, the living shadows raining down on her as the sky collapses from over them, when she hears Zoya scream for her and Alina screams back, when she slips- He clutches at her, in actuality and figuratively, a hand protectively resting on her hip, the other still intertwined with her own. She lets him do this, comforted as her Darkling guides her in, gently folding Alina into him, the creases of his cloak warm against her bare arms. He wipes away her tears and she feels like a child all over again, leaning against him in acknowledgement of surrender. 

 

_ {Be a dose of protection through the blood and the tears _

_ If you losing yourself, then my body is here} _

 

Galaxies swim behind Alina’s tightly closed eyes when her Darkling’s lips brush her own. They don’t speak, there’s nothing to say. She still believes in ghosts and fairy tales, and that, maybe one day, the remains of the Unsea will be more than wasteland. This is a beginning, the beginning of the end, but the start of something nonetheless. Alina waits, her cold fingers brushing his collar. Aleksander holds her, protects her, and when they collapse, they collapse together. They can’t, they won’t make it through the decay, the disintegration of what she was born to remedy. Alina looks up, glancing at the cracks of blue within the swirling darkness. Her eyes burn and light pours out from her fingertips as she trails kisses down his neck. She prays to her saints, counting them off silently in her head: Petyr, Marya, Anastasia, Vladimir, Alina, Morozova. This would be their genesis, and she would not balk from it. 

 

_ {If you start running away _

_ Then there'll be no where to hide} _

  
  



End file.
